The present invention relates to therapeutic exercising devices and, more particularly, to a device for mechanically exercising the muscles and joints of a user's body.
Devices have heretofore been proposed for mechanically exercising the muscles or joints of a person who is incapable of self-exercise, as evidenced for example, by the disclosures in U.S. Pat. No. 964,898 issued to Budingen on July 19, 1910, U.S. Pat. No. 2,815,020 issued to Barkschat on Dec. 3, 1957, U.S. Pat. No. 3,301,553 issued to Brakeman on Jan. 31, 1967, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,540,435, issued to Smith on Nov. 17, 1970. Those devices are rather cumbersome and mechanically complicated and may offer only uni-directional exercising of the joints, rather than a more desirable multi-directional exercising. All of the above-noted patents, except that to Smith, are adapted only to exercise the user's legs. The Smith apparatus is able to exercise arms and legs, but is rather unwieldy.
It is, therefore, an object of the present invention to minimize or obviate the problems of the above-discussed type.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an exercising apparatus which is able to exert multi-directional exercising motions on the muscles or joints of a user.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such an exercising apparatus which combines linear and oscillatory exercising motions on a user's limbs.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide an exercising apparatus which is capable of exercising either the arms or legs of a patient.
It is a further object of the invention to provide an exercising device which is relatively compact and easily adaptable to a bed patient.